1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a selective test pack feeder which can be advantageously used to supply test packs (reaction vessels providing reaction chambers for different analysis items) to any automatized analyzing apparatus that can perform biochemical analyses such as immuno-chemical analysis.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Two types of operating methods have been conventionally known for biochemical analyses such as immuno-chemical analysis; in a first method a reagent for each analyte, contained in a given vessel set in an analyzing apparatus, is fractionally poured into reaction vessels of specimens during an analyzing operation, and in a second method a common reagent is fractionally poured into individual reaction vessels containing different reagents for the corresponding analytes when the analysis is made.
Recent circumstances have required a process for analyzing a number of specimens on a mass production basis. For instance, a biochemical analysis in a narrow sense, or an immuno-chemical analysis recently has been widely used for the diagnoses of diseases, as the number of analytes as well as the number of assays processed by clinical laboratories has increased.
Under these circumstances, automatized multi-analyte biochemical analyzing apparatuses in a narrow sense, or immunochemical analyzing apparatuses (hereinafter referred to as "biochemical analyzing apparatuses") using the first method as described above have been provided.
These apparatuses have been generally used in such a way that every analyte was analyzed on each specimen in sequence.
While the analytes were more diversified, the medical costs have been higher and higher. In these circumstances, the practices of making an analysis on all analytes have been considered to be useless or wasteful in these biochemical analyzing apparatuses and their operations from the viewpoint of practical purposes. Consequently, needs have been increased for analytical processing wherein each of many specimens is analyzed on selected analytes as required (hereinafter referred to as "random access processing").
To satisfy these increasing needs, random access processing apparatuses using the first method have been provided. However, the efficiency in apparatus and reagent has deteriorated, as the range of measuring analytes as well as the range of differences in measuring frequency between analytes has enlarged.
On the other hand, more and more attention has been directed to biochemical anlayzing apparatuses using the second method, which are suitable to random access processing involving a wide range of measuring analytes as well as a wide range of differences in measuring frequency between analytes.
However, random access processing as described above requires feeding in analyzing apparatus with multiple types of test packs in independent analyzing orders on specimens. This requirement makes the analyzing works complicated and onerous and consequently causes erroneous operation.